Blog Post #5
A Blog for Father’s Day
My husband and I are in an argument. Our older daughter, a junior in high school, has asked for an SAT tutor. She is an A student. She qualified to compete for a national merit scholarship after taking her PSATs.
“What does she need a tutor for?” I say.
“The SATs are important, Judi. I don’t understand why you would say no,” my husband responds.
“I hate this system. What about the kids who can’t afford a tutor?” I continue to argue.
“I’m sick of your liberal crap. This isn’t about some theoretical child. This is Frannie. If I can give her an opportunity to do the best she can on the SATs, why would I deny her that?”
And here comes the punch line. “You’ve had the kids for the past sixteen years. Now it’s my turn.”
His turn? What am I, some contractor who built his house and now, when he’s ready to live in it, I can’t come in?
This conversation took place eight years ago. Since then, I have seen some benefits to giving John his “turn.” Given where Frannie went to high school and where we lived, college admissions officers probably assumed she had been tutored. But I got to stick to my principles while Frannie got her tutor. She did well on her SATs, but she probably would have anyway. Her tutor wasn’t very good.
Despite feminism and fathers who change diapers and stay-at-home dads, we haven’t moved very far in the conversation about how women carry most of the burden at home. On any given day, women put in more time on housekeeping and child care than their male partners, even if they each work the same hours. But is this the way we should be comparing parental roles? Maybe it’s not in the day-to-day division of labor that we should be looking for parity, but in the overall arc of the years we spend not just raising our children, but nurturing and supporting them.
Somewhere during the time when Frannie was preparing for college and my two youngest were beginning their trek through high school and adolescence, I got tired of attending to the details of raising children. No longer dealing with toilet training and picky appetites, I was now monitoring curfew, using the goodnight kiss as a breathalyzer, shaking the kids awake in the morning to get them ready for school, and scrounging under beds and in the hamper to find the knee socks needed for the perfect uniform they forgot they had to wear until just that morning. I was beginning to think this idea of taking turns wasn’t a bad one. With Frannie now living and working on her own and her brother Max and sister Nadia in college, I have excused myself from worrying about my kids’ every concern. Not so my husband.
Max, a rising junior in college, began an internship at an investment bank this summer. John gets up with him each morning at 6:15 to make him a fried egg sandwich and see him off to work. I spent the first week of my son’s internship in Los Angeles on a book tour. When Nadia came home from a stressful trip to Berlin, John was home in New York when she arrived. I remained on Martha’s Vineyard where I was enjoying my weekend.
John helps the kids set up their bank accounts, understand apartment leases, and fill out tax forms. He stocks their refrigerators and pantries, makes sure their cars have gas and up-to-date inspection stickers. He worries when they ride the subway at night, if they don’t respond to a text within an hour, and over the courses they are taking in school. He keeps mental track of the schedule of the two kids still in college. He knows when they have tests or papers due. He loves them unconditionally and shows it by doing everything he can to make their lives as pain-free as possible.
Of course, pain does arise. Small hurts as well as trauma. This is where I emerge from the non-maternal life I have been building for myself—to talk, to soothe, to place a hand on a brow, to massage the tight cords of muscle along the side of a neck. John hovers like a bird who can’t figure out why his babies can’t fly. But he remains close by, ready to resume his daily chirping and encouragement.
I’m not sure the kids need all this hovering. Like the SAT tutor, I like to encourage more independence. But I often go too far. Some stressors are unnecessary when they can be alleviated so easily. Because John has made that his job, I am that much more free.
So I guess this is a thank you to John for taking his turn. Happy Father’s Day.
My husband and I are in an argument. Our older daughter, a junior in high school, has asked for an SAT tutor. She is an A student. She qualified to compete for a national merit scholarship after taking her PSATs.
“What does she need a tutor for?” I say.
“The SATs are important, Judi. I don’t understand why you would say no,” my husband responds.
“I hate this system. What about the kids who can’t afford a tutor?” I continue to argue.
“I’m sick of your liberal crap. This isn’t about some theoretical child. This is Frannie. If I can give her an opportunity to do the best she can on the SATs, why would I deny her that?”
And here comes the punch line. “You’ve had the kids for the past sixteen years. Now it’s my turn.”
His turn? What am I, some contractor who built his house and now, when he’s ready to live in it, I can’t come in?
This conversation took place eight years ago. Since then, I have seen some benefits to giving John his “turn.” Given where Frannie went to high school and where we lived, college admissions officers probably assumed she had been tutored. But I got to stick to my principles while Frannie got her tutor. She did well on her SATs, but she probably would have anyway. Her tutor wasn’t very good.
Despite feminism and fathers who change diapers and stay-at-home dads, we haven’t moved very far in the conversation about how women carry most of the burden at home. On any given day, women put in more time on housekeeping and child care than their male partners, even if they each work the same hours. But is this the way we should be comparing parental roles? Maybe it’s not in the day-to-day division of labor that we should be looking for parity, but in the overall arc of the years we spend not just raising our children, but nurturing and supporting them.
Somewhere during the time when Frannie was preparing for college and my two youngest were beginning their trek through high school and adolescence, I got tired of attending to the details of raising children. No longer dealing with toilet training and picky appetites, I was now monitoring curfew, using the goodnight kiss as a breathalyzer, shaking the kids awake in the morning to get them ready for school, and scrounging under beds and in the hamper to find the knee socks needed for the perfect uniform they forgot they had to wear until just that morning. I was beginning to think this idea of taking turns wasn’t a bad one. With Frannie now living and working on her own and her brother Max and sister Nadia in college, I have excused myself from worrying about my kids’ every concern. Not so my husband.
Max, a rising junior in college, began an internship at an investment bank this summer. John gets up with him each morning at 6:15 to make him a fried egg sandwich and see him off to work. I spent the first week of my son’s internship in Los Angeles on a book tour. When Nadia came home from a stressful trip to Berlin, John was home in New York when she arrived. I remained on Martha’s Vineyard where I was enjoying my weekend.
John helps the kids set up their bank accounts, understand apartment leases, and fill out tax forms. He stocks their refrigerators and pantries, makes sure their cars have gas and up-to-date inspection stickers. He worries when they ride the subway at night, if they don’t respond to a text within an hour, and over the courses they are taking in school. He keeps mental track of the schedule of the two kids still in college. He knows when they have tests or papers due. He loves them unconditionally and shows it by doing everything he can to make their lives as pain-free as possible.
Of course, pain does arise. Small hurts as well as trauma. This is where I emerge from the non-maternal life I have been building for myself—to talk, to soothe, to place a hand on a brow, to massage the tight cords of muscle along the side of a neck. John hovers like a bird who can’t figure out why his babies can’t fly. But he remains close by, ready to resume his daily chirping and encouragement.
I’m not sure the kids need all this hovering. Like the SAT tutor, I like to encourage more independence. But I often go too far. Some stressors are unnecessary when they can be alleviated so easily. Because John has made that his job, I am that much more free.
So I guess this is a thank you to John for taking his turn. Happy Father’s Day.
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